Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

The Times ignores phone hacking, then blames 'journalism' for News International's shocking practices

The main leader in the Times today is headed "The Practice of Journalism". That's a brazen choice of title, given that what follows is one of the most dishonest, misleading and badly written pieces of journalism I've read in a long time.

In summary, The Times is accusing British journalism in general of the scummy practices that are the hallmark of its parent company, News International, which is accused of hacking into the voicemail of Milly Dowler and, possibly, those of the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Let's go through the article. It begins:

There is no doubt that journalists are today in their version of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Really? I think you'll find that it is News International journalists and executives, not other newspapers, who are today in their version of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Before today … we have sought to report the story [the issue of phone hacking] straight, in good faith, without taking any editorial view.

The Times has reported the story "straight, in good faith"? That's news to me. I can't find very much reporting of the News International phone hacking scandals, and neither can the Guardian's Roy Greenslade. He wrote on his blog in March:

For months, The Times (which used to claim it was "the paper of record") has failed to report on the many revelations about the phone-hacking scandal at its sister publication, the News of the World.

It has ignored a string of stories that have totally undermined the NoW's previous defence that hacking was restricted to a single "rogue reporter".

There has been no mention of the many victims of hacking who have started legal actions against its parent company, News International.

Nor has it reported on the court pressure on the private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, to reveal the names of NoW executives who ordered him to hack into people's phones.

Back to the Times leader, now desperately trying to spread the muck around:

Given the reports of phone hacking by other national newspapers, how much of this was the exception and how much, across the industry, the rule?

I discovered that a private detective … had successfully – and again illegally – obtained details of my private tax affairs from the Inland Revenue (now HMRC). These were details that eventually found their way into the pages of a national newspaper: The Sunday Times.

Now there's a surprise.

And so to the leader's peroration:

It ought to go without saying that nothing of the nature can ever happen again. But then it ought to have gone without saying that nothing of this nature could ever have happened in the first place. This is why it is so important that the truth be known.

Such thunderous flatulence defies parody. But, for the record, so far as readers of the Times were concerned, it did indeed "go without saying" that these crimes took place because, quite simply, they weren't reported.